hay guys itt a hell of dumb question related to racialism

Race is much broader. Anglo-Saxons, Eastern Europeans, Lebanese, etc. are all part of the Caucasian race but are different ethnicities.

Like most classification systems, it's all very artificial and arbitrary. I don't know if there's really a "SCIENCE" definition aside from certain specific or not-so-specific genetic patterns, maybe.

I'm still trying to figure WTF's up with this arbitrary gender/sex thing.

Okay, I just took an intro to sociology class this past spring, so here is what my book has to say:

Race - a category of people treated as distinct on account of physical characteristics to which social importance has been assigned.

Ethnic group - a category whose members are thought to share a common origin and to share important elements of a common culture.

From David Brinkerhoff's Essentials of Sociology

Sex and gender are also defined within sociology - sex is biological, while gender is cultural.

Also, Curt1s Stephens is correct; the definitions are imposed, not inherent. And even sex, which seems straightforward because it is biological, can be tricky (for example a person with XY genetic makeup whose genitalia appear to be female).

yeah i heard jaimee lee curtis is like that

Sex and gender are also defined within sociology - sex is biological, while gender is cultural.

Sex is also defined within biology.

And sexyology.

That Sexyology course is always the first to fill up when registrations start.

Is Crut1s also correct about Lebanese people being caucasian?

My gf's Lebanese is all.

a side note, this fucking arsehole once called her a "fucking spic" to her face.

dude did NOT consider her a caucasian AT ALL.

the scientific basis of race has been pretty much debunked--scientific arguments that race has a biological basis routinely have fucked-up, bell-curve-ish associations.

the classification "Caucasian" belongs to an outdated racial (anthropological, I think?) paradigm that more or less divided humanity into four broad categories on a spectrum from fairness to darkness (though I remember being taught the spectrum as though it were fact in, like eighth grade!, which is shocking in retrospect) (That would have been 1992. I guess The Bell Curve was published after that, so...) I think in this defunct racial schema (it was invented in the nineteenth century, maybe?), Arabs were considered "Caucasian"; this has nothing necessarily to do with perceptions of Arabs now, particularly where they're minorities. Not to get all grotesquely nineteenth century anthropological about it, but there are a range of skin colors expressed in the Arab world, so there are certainly Arabs who look "white."

and yeah, the definition Sara cited seems to get at the semantic distinction between race and ethnicity.

http://www.geocities.com/onerace_getwithit/

looking at what 'lebanese' means is an ideal way to see what an insanely complex question this is.

Hello, I am here to say this thread is full of WTF!!!

dude did NOT consider her a caucasian AT ALL.

specifically, this!

ok so basically everyone else is not 100% on it either, that is all i needed 2 know

(thx horseshoez <3~)

Is Crut1s also correct about Lebanese people being caucasian?

My gf's Lebanese is all.

a side note, this fucking arsehole once called her a "fucking spic" to her face.

dude did NOT consider her a caucasian AT ALL.

same deal w/that indian mathlete guy in mean girls but that turned out more positive i guess

ya rly.

looking at what 'lebanese' means is an ideal way to see what an insanely complex question this is.

Indeed. Bargepoles recommended.

I think these days, when speaking about differetn races has (for a good reason) become somewhat a taboo, "ethnicity" has become a politically correct shorthand for "non-white", like "ethnic people" or "ethnic restaurant". This can be problematic, because this often involves an underlying idea that white people have no ethnicity and still work as an measuring stick, compared to whom everyone else is "ethnic".

Also, even though the idea of different races has been debunked by natural sciences, social sciences still have to use the term "race" (usually in scare quotes to denote it's artificiality), since prejudices about "race" still exist in people's minds, and these prejudices can have very real consequences, which need to be studied. As constructed as "race" may be, it still has to be discussed.

ethnicity" has become a politically correct shorthand for "non-white", like "ethnic people" or "ethnic restaurant"

In America maybe

is that bad? i do it all the time. also when i am trying a new ethnic restaurant i find the food is more palatable if i imagine that it was all prepared by an attractive white woman~~

DNFTT

Do Not Fuck The Tuomas?

Turollmas